{"id":3760,"date":"2013-09-04T16:43:20","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T20:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=3760"},"modified":"2013-09-11T18:40:51","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T22:40:51","slug":"ride-for-karen-comes-through-aurora-this-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/ride-for-karen-comes-through-aurora-this-sunday\/","title":{"rendered":"Ride for Karen comes through Aurora this Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Be on the lookout for cyclists this Sunday for Ride for Karen.<\/p>\n

The annual ride to raise money for children battling and effected by cancer, was founded in 2002, by the children and family of Karen Tobias. Since its inception, the ride has raised over $1.8 million to build and furnish new cancer care centres and send children living and affected by cancer to camp for the summer. <\/p>\n

This year\u2019s ride leaves Sunday from Maple\u2019s St. Joan of Arc High School. Registration begins at 7.30 a.m. with the ride kicking off at 9 a.m. There are various routes of various lengths taking place to cater for each rider, but it is the 160km \u201cCentury Ride\u201d which will bring participants through Aurora.
\nHeading south from Newmarket, riders will eventually head down McCowan Road before heading west on Vandorf Sideroad to Bayview and then southbound on Bayview to Bloomington as they continue west out of Aurora towards King.
\nAmong the cyclists this year will be Aurora lawyer Russ Howe. Mr. Howe, a partner in Boland Howe on Industrial Parkway, wanted to be a part of the Ride the minute he heard about it three years ago.<\/p>\n

A participant in the Toronto Ride to Conquer Cancer, the idea of doing something more local with a focus on children appealed to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you hear about a ride in the area for kids with cancer, you just can\u2019t say not to that,\u201d he says. \u201cMy grandfather passed away from cancer, my dad had cancer, my business partner had cancer, and I don\u2019t know anybody who doesn\u2019t have something in their family who has had a fight with cancer. When it is children, it is worth that much more going for.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he made his first inroads into Ride for Karen two years ago, Mr. Howe says he was struck by the friendliness of the crowd. He didn\u2019t have any friends joining him that year but within five or 10 minutes, he had found new friends to ride with.<\/p>\n

\u201c100k is a long way for a middle-aged, overweight guy!\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cI am going over four hours riding that 100k. I am not a particularly fast rider, but there are a couple of hills that really challenge you for sure. The nice thing about it is when you\u2019re out on the road, you\u2019re sure to find a group of people who are riding the same speed as you and when you\u2019re riding around chatting about stuff, it doesn\u2019t hurt as bad as if you\u2019re riding by yourself thinking about it!\u201d<\/p>\n

When he finds the time, Mr. Howe says he particularly enjoys training by riding his bike on the roads and trails in and around Aurora. In the weeks leading up to the Ride, he has been focusing on his training, riding three or four times a week, trying to eat better, and everything possible to help him over some of those more challenging hills. Another priority is making sure his bike is in tip-top shape so he\u2019s not unexpectedly stranded somewhere along the route. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really about prioritizing it,\u201d he says of finding the time to train. \u201cThis is going to sound terrible, but Sons of Anarchy is not on TV and all the good TV shows are down, so there are less things to suck my butt on the couch and keep me from doing it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he enjoys riding through Aurora, one of his favourite spots on the route are the flat, scenic landscapes of the Holland Landing area. On some of these flatter areas where it is easier to essentially go with the flow, he has found time to think and reflect about what he has learned about himself in the challenge. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I get to the end of the ride, there is a feeling you have just done something significant to help people who are in a lot of trouble, and it almost makes you hungry to do good things for other people,\u201d he says. \u201cSometimes you forget about that. You\u2019re paying the bills, you\u2019re doing all kinds of stuff, but when you take a little time to look at the bigger issue and other people, I think you are better for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ride for Karen is really friendly and uplifting. It\u2019s a great group of people, you\u2019re going to meet people you like, make friends, and the most important thing is it is not a race. It is set up for people of all speeds and all abilities. If you are just an occasional cyclist, it is going to take you longer to do it, but it is a great way to see the area and meet new people. If you can\u2019t feel good with helping kids with cancer, you\u2019ve got a problem!\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on Ride for Karen, visit www.rideforkaren.com. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Be on the lookout for cyclists this Sunday for Ride for Karen.<\/p>\n

The annual ride to raise money for children battling and effected by cancer, was founded in 2002, by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/2013-09-04-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-YE","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 11:01:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}